Saturday, January 23, 2016

My grandpa DeYoung never wasted a green waste can once he has trash service. We have always tried to follow that advise but living in a track house has meant sometimes we just don't have any green waste. Yesterday while dragging the trash can full of old carpet, blinds to the road Thomas just had to fill the green waste can with tumbleweeds. Keep in mind that we have about 10,000,000,000 tumbleweeds to deal with. But now there is 1 green waste can less.

On Wednesday the shipping container we ordered from Long Beach arrived. This will act as storage for our stuff until the house is built. In the future it will likely be a hay barn and hold the tractor. It came while the boys were at school but Thomas had fun watching it be delivered early. It was delivered facing the wrong direction so our next job is to move it more towards the back of the property. He said the delivery driver Carlos was a pro and dropped it as far back as he could. I wish I knew what other treasures it has held over the years. Jonathan can't wait for it to be moved because it is blocking an old tractor tire he is using as a fort.

One of the first things we have to do to get the house ready to be livable (it's pretty rustic) is painting and floors. On MLK day my mom and dad helped paint with the boys. We did their bedroom, hallway, our bedroom and the bathroom. It was strange to not be careful and just make it feel cleaner. We joked that the paint will help hold the walls up. Our plan is to add on a new house and tear the majority of the tiny house down, but live there in the meantime.
Floors- after an estimate of 3,000 for carpet Thomas hopped on Craigslist and bought 2,000 sqare feet of laminate floors for 300. Looks like I get in install laminate next week.

It's been forever since I've blogged. I can't say I'll keep up , but I know I'll try.
So the past few months have been pretty busy. We are currently in Havasu taking a weekend to rest and recover. Here is a quick recap:

October: Thomas with his love of real estate had been searching for home for our family with more property. We had been looking for a while. Always looking and praying for God to bring us the right one for our family. One came up in Cherry Valley that he had been watching for a year, this time it was listed with the house (before it was just the front 3 acres.) We went to check it out and knew it was special . We decided to make an offer.

November: Making an offer meant we had to sell our house, for a certain ammount. We trusted that if God wanted it to happen our house would sell. We had offers and were in escrow in 4 days. The appraisal also came in with a good ammount.

December: Our renters for the past 5 years bought a house and moved out. We started boxing up our house and packing it into that garage. Packing, purging and cleaning during the holidays wasn't the most fun but we made it happen. We filled trash cans at both houses whenever we could. Escrow closed on December 31st. What a way to end 2015.

January: The first week of January we quickly moved out the remainder of our house and started living in our rental. We had the biggest yard sale ever. Across the yard, driveway and other yard. Massive amounts of clothes, clutter, toys, furniture, and junk. We closed on our property on the 13th and got the keys last weekend.

It has been incredible to see how God's timing has been working. I'm not going to say it's all been easy, definitely a trusting adventure. We are excited and nervous about the future with 5.5 acres. I'm hoping to blog more about our adventures.